The standard preparation for Lent asks us to step away from our busy lives and consider our mortality: for you were made from dust, and to dust you will return. Until Mack died, Lent was a kind of intrusion into my busy life and a bold reminder that all we see around us is finite.

Since Mack died I don’t just consider death, I live with it. We who mourn the love and presence of a beloved live in constant reminder of our mortality because a part of us has already returned to the Lord, and yet part of us remains.